A Funny Thing Happened: Travel Anecdote
Travel often leads us into funny or humorous situations. Write about a time something funny happened to you while travelling. Keep it very short (no more than 200 words) and use story telling style: have people talking in dialogue, for example. Brad intends to offer a fresh anecdote from his computer in Europe. Make sure your anecdote is submitted before class on Wednesday, April 14.
19 comments:
Is Someone In There?
After a long trip through the Chunnel on the Eurostar, we got on the local Belgian train to Leuven (where my daughter is studying French). The train car was mostly empty and had a convenient WC (washroom) with an automatic door. Across, sat a young woman dressed in the "hippy" style with mismatched gloves, sensible looking shoes that closed with a button rather than laces and a long scarf knotted around her neck. Beside her was younger dark-skinned man dressed in track pants and a polo shirt. When not talking on his mobile (cell) in a rapid fire mix of Arabic and French, he fidgeted and, at times, laid down on the seats with his hands behind his head. I'd already tried the WC door, but it appeared to be occupied. Soon, a steady parade of people came to try the door, but none were successful. Finally, the man got up, banged hard on the door, kicked it once or twice and yelled, "Il y a quelqu'un? Il y a quelqu'un?" (Is anyone in there?) The young woman across from me smiled and rolled her eyes. The man returned to his seat, but, oddly, did not appear to need the WC (he didn't search for another one). Perhaps he was trying to help us out, but who knows? --215 words
When I was travelling to Egypt in 2003, I passed to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I slept in a hotel for a day. The next day in the morning, two students from Tchad who were also going to Egypt came to my room. Their room was facing to mine. I put my pajama on, pull my room’s door, then I went with them to their room. After we finished chatting, I needed to go back to my room to get ready before an airport’s bus came. I tried to open my door, but it was automatically locked and the keys were inside. “Anybody inside?” I shouted in my language, but nobody answered. I went back to the Tchadian boys, and I said, “I can’t open my door, and I have everything in there.” One of them said, “You better be kidding because we’ll leave you here, I swear.” I went back to my door, and knocked angrily. (The tears started to stream on my cheek.) Then, one of the hotel’s cleaners asked me, “What’s going on?” “Here” I pointed to my door. She asked confusingly, “What?” I repeated “Here, here” She tried to open the door, but it was locked, then she knew that the door was locked automatically. She went to grab another key, and opened the door for me. After, I didn’t get out again until the airport bus came to pick us up.
--221 words.
Everybody has probably been on an airplane at least once in their life and for me this was the third time on a plane, going to Montreal. Apparently drinking liquor on an airplanes makes the effects of alcohol consumption last for a longer period of time. As I was seated, I was sitting in the middle column. One of the flight attendents asked a woman sitting by the emergency exit to "move to the middle column seats", in my row. As she moved to my row, there were two other individuals beside me drinking alcohol as well. This woman asked for vodka right when she was seated. Within 20 minutes she asked for another bottle of vodka, then the flight attendent kneeled down beside her and explained to her that he thought, "two bottles are enough for you", because he remembered her on a previous flight where she had more than two bottles of vodka and started running up and down the aisles of the airplane and kept knocking on the cockpit. So I guess you could say I'm glad they keep tabs on the passengers and only give the minature bottles of liquor.
--192 words
In June 2008, a hot day in BC, I joined a four-day Mandarin nature tour to the Rocky Mountains. There were total fourteen members in our group. Most of them were similar to my age.
One hot afternoon, when we passed by a very long lake in Alberta, we took a break and four of our girls were standing at the bank of the lake making our daydreams to have a cruise in the lake.
“Hi, do you girls want a ride in the lake?” A young man on a splendid 40-feet yacht said to us loudly. It is really magic, our daydreams came true.
“Well……Well, why not? How much do you want?” We replied.
“It’s free. You are all welcomed to be our guests,”The young man answered.
“But we are in a group and our team has fourteen members. Is it O.K.?” I asked.
“Of course, you are all welcomed!” The young man answered.
Then, all of our members boarded on their yacht. We sat on the deck surfing, drinking, laughing and enjoying their special performances- jumping from a cliff into the water with variety styles. We were not only happy to join their annually bachelor get together but also excited about our daydreams come true.
We were aware that our rendezvous will be hard. A storm has just caused major landslides along our route, rendering various portions of the road unpassable. We have to travel by foot and by taking short rides to our destination- a remote hinterland village known for its pristine rice terraces. We proceeded as planned. There were five of us- all men- treking mud slides, paved roads,and taking short rides. Everything is fun, kiding and laughter, it is part of the adventure. Darkness is dawning when, on one of our short rides, we stopped and checked the road passability. I was out of the vehicle, then out of no where, a man brandishing a jungle bolo appeared swearing at us and blocking the exit door of our vehicle.He is drunk and mad. Still swearing, he struck the car with his bolo several times sending out sparks! I saw my friends helpless and vulnerable inside the vehicle. There are local people around so I tried to ask help to neutralise the madman. One man heeded and I was suddenly alarmed when this man brought out his gun. I folowed the man to the scene. He assesed the situation. Then, he turned back and was leaving! I asked,"why"? The man with a gun answered that the madman will not strike people. I asked again, how could he say that? My "saviour" said;" he will not strike the way he held his jungle bolo." That's it, then he left! Me and my friends are still alive anyway.
During last spring break, I had a trip to Vancouver Island. In Sunshine Coast Museum & Archives, I caught sight of a funny teacher’s contract of a young lady in 1924. It required her to accept thirteen conditions, including her dressing style, marital status, and routine life. She should not wear colorful or short dresses. She should be single and stay away from any man except her brothers or father. It forbade her to smoke cigarettes and drink beer, wine or whiskey. One amazing requirement is that she must stay at home between 8pm and 6am unless she was in attendance of a school function. I understood that she should have the permission of the chairman to leave town, but I could not understand why she was required “not to loiter downtown in ice cream parlous.” How about snack-bars or other entertainment places?
Deep Night's Antics
In my province, people are still awake until midnight if there are festivals. There was a time when we came from a feast from a neighbouring city, just walking back to our ancestral house. It was already 1:00am, dark and cold, hearing the little screech of the bats and our footsteps. On our way home, one of my cousins poked my elder sister and she screamed so loudly that echoed on the undeveloped part of our town. Right after her scream, our youngest cousin peed in his shorts. Feeling zany and eerie, I told them to hurry up because it was really getting late (thinking that our auntie would get angry). Few more minutes of walking and joking around, we entered our ancestral house’s garden, at last. But we didn't know that there would be a scary moment going to happen... As we got closer in the dark main door, a hazy figure was waiting there. Dressed with a long white robe, our auntie frightened us with her "booh" sound. Startled for few seconds, our witty auntie turned on the door lights and said, “That’s what you get in getting late!” matching with a zestful laugh! What a humorous night!
-200 words
After taking a rest in the hotel, my family and my friends decided to go fishing. My friend, Johansson, gave us a suggestion:” every family buys a license for salmons. If you are lucky, you can take a salmon to home.” In my family, my sons expected to have a license of their, they think they can catch a salmon. Finally, my family buys four licenses; we think we will get more than four salmon. Owing to the cost we can’t buy too many licenses, we should give up some salmons which we catch in the future. When going fishing on a ship, the wave of sea made me sick. I felt headache and stomach ache, and began to vomit. After catching three fishes, cheap and small, I couldn’t fish again. For feeling uncomfortable, I sat on a bench to take rest. During the period, I checked the outcomes of everyone. None caught a salmon, and few people got more than 5 fishes. After estimating the value of our fishes, I found the total cost, excluding salmon license fee, could get double quantity of the fishes. After returned to port, we found our payment of the license of salmon was worthless. All of us made a dream – fishing is easy, and we are good at fishing.
It was last summer when I spent two months with my husband in Lebanon.Each one of us came back to vancouver in different time and plane.My husband travelled one day before,He supposed to arrive to vancouver airport in twenty eight of July.The next following day I quit Beirut airport going back to vancouver, when I arrived to London Heatthrow I known that I was late to my second plane( The one going to vancouver)I was alone and tired, didn't know what to do in this situation suddenly, a very nice women works there asked me:"Are you okay"? she known later that I was late but it wasn't my fault,I had only 2 hours and time wasn't enough to take the other plane.I Followed her to the plane to discovered later that the plane also delayed one hour and all the paseengers were angry.I laughed a lot at myself because I though it was my mistake after eleven hours I arrived to vancouver To know later that ny husband not coming yet, also because his plane delayed 3 hours.I really can't forget this funny trip.
The funniest thing that I could recall happened when we first landed Canada in Calgary. Instead of waiting in our friends’ home to move into our apartment, our family took a trip to the Rocky Mountains. It was October, and there were few people on vacation there. My husband and I marveled at the tranquil view of the mountains and lakes. I had never seen so many different colors in the natural world. Red, yellow, golden, brown and a little bit of green were mixing together, leaves displaying endless possibilities. One day, we took a two-hour rental of a boat and lounged on the blue-diamond-like Jasper Lake. Exactly ten minutes to the end of the two hours, we rowed the boat to a wharf. As soon as the boat got close to the deck, eagerly, I stretched one of my legs to reach to the deck. I did it. While my other leg was still on the edge of the boat, and the boat was moving backward. Feeling panic and the pain of my separating legs, I screamed at the top of my lungs, “Ah!” Then comes a big splash. The next thing I knew was that I was in the lake, and my three-year-old daughter was burst into a big laugh, rubbing her tummy, wiping her eyes, having her greatest moment of this trip.
After my sister's wedding reception, a bunch of us decided to stay and camp out for the night in th park. After finding the perfect place to set up for the night first thing we did was look through the car for a lighter to start a fire. Guess what, with our luck we couldn't find one. Not even matches. It was really dark, but we figured we could still pitch the tent. It wasn't easy trying to read the directions, assemble the poles, and properly put it together, but as a team we were able to do it. My friend then passed me the air pump and said " I'm gunna go brush my teeth. You fill the air matress up" I waved my hand in the air at him and said "Sure, no problem. I got this." Confident in myself, i grabbed the pump and attempted to blow the mattress up. Turns out, it wasn't quite as simple as that. The air kept coming out every time i took the pump out and tried to put the lid back on. It made no sence at all to me. So i thought maybe if I stand up and hold the mattress up right, it would be easier for me. Clearly that was not the case. Next thing i know, i see my friend coming from the bathroom laughting so hard and loud(i swear the entire camp site could hear) because apparently it looked like i was wrestling with the air mattress. Funny as it seems, what he saw, was basically true. I was wrestling with a depleting air mattress. My friend, through his hysterical laughing, then showed me the plug inside the mattress and explained to me, speaking very slowly, "You have to put this plug in, before the outer plug. It is what is used to stop the air from leaking out."
Last year, my family and I took a vacation to the Philippines. From the Manila airport to the place we stayed, it takes about 13 hours to drive which is a very long time. My brother also brought his girlfriend who only stayed for 3 weeks beacuse she had to be back for something really important. After there enjoyable 3 week stay, my brother and his girlfriend were off to the airport. As they arrived to the airport after a long drive, my brother called me in shock and out of breath saying, "Richard!? where's mom, I have the wrong passport and our plane is here!" They had to wait about 15 hours at the airport before we arrived for his passport and my brothers girlfriend missed the "important" thing she had to attend to.
We went to Whistler with our friends for two days last week, and the hotel where we reserved had a nice warm pool. Looking at enormous whitish Mountain and swimming in hot water was really lovely especially in a sunny day. My husband and his friends decided to dive under water, but one of his friends wore contact lens, and he could not to swim under water with open eyes. He said he had to take them off or to swim with closed eyes under water otherwise his lens might bother him. It was not enough time to take them off, and he wanted to try it with closed eyes. I thought he was kidding, but he dived with closed eyes, and his nose hit the floor. He came up with bloody nose. At first I was worried, and I thought his nose might break. Fortunately, he did not damage seriously: his nose just scratched. We had lots of fun that day, but he did not like to have a photo of his scratched nose.
Come from Underground
In early February 1998, we three family took a trip to Yunnan which in South West China. We flew to Kunming -- provincial capital of Yunnan, and then took a train to Dali, to Lijiang by bus; finally, we took bus to Lake Luguhu which is a famous tourist attraction for its matriarchal society and walking marriage. We set out at 8:00 and the trip would take us seven hours. We three men sat at the end of the bus and enjoyed amused scenery and chatted a lot. When we were talking with delight, we heard somebody was complaining: “Our vehicle is running so slowly.” We realized that a variety of vehicles had overtaken our vehicle. There were more critical of the speed of our vehicle, but there was no choice. The driver eventually told the truth that the engine was not in a good condition. The road in some sections were rebuilding after lunch break. Gradually, the car was full of dust, especially the end of the bus. We three were covered with dust and we had to wear our wives' or children's scarves to prevent dust. One child said “Dad looked like come from underground” when we got our destination after ten hours.
-- 205 words
Last year, I traveled back to Europe for two months. My girlfriend from Vancouver decided to stay with me at my aunt’s house in Korcula Croatia. My aunt’s house was on a little island, right on Mediterranean Sea. Two weeks that we stayed there we didn’t do whole lot, we would get up at noon, go to the beach and party. The only problem that we had was getting around; because it was a small island there was no public transportation, and buses would ran once a day. My aunt worked and so did my cousins, so we felt bad always asking for rides. My girlfriend and I decided to rent a Scooter; I remembered they were so expensive, if we were in Canada, we could have probably rented a car for the same amount of money. We rented it for four days and if everything went well we would extend it for couple more. Two days went by and we drove around everywhere, we loved it because we had no problem getting around and it was easy to find parking. The forth day came and we were on our way back from the beach, roads in Europe are really small, and narrow. My girlfriend was driving only 20/h and ran over some gravel on the road. She got scared and drove into the bushes and that’s when we both fell off. At the moment it was a little scary but after when we saw that both of us were okay, we started to laugh. Our legs were a little scratched and blue but we were fine. The next day we decided to bring the Scooter back and hassle people for rides. To this day we joke around going back to Europe and renting a Scooter again.
My sister Kim and I have always been like night and day, she’s never been a fan of bugs or dirt. The year was 1997 and my family reunion was being held in Nova Scotia where my mom and dad were born. My dad wanted to show us kids “the cool place to hang” from his childhood, Dead Man’s Lake. It was an unbearably hot day; we jumped in the water without a second thought. We soon found ourselves surrounded by adorable green frogs. My cousins and I each grabbed one, “I’m going to call mine Fred”. Surprisingly my sister joined in on the fun, momentarily forgetting about the murky muddy water. I decided to take a break and went over to the log my dad and uncles were sitting on, I saw something weird and turned to my dad “Hey dad what’s this black bug on my leg?” he looked and said “uh-oh.” Turns out the lake had found some new roommates, leaches. My first thought was blurted out “Who’s going to tell Kim?” as those words left my lips they were followed by the most spine shivering shriek I have ever heard. To this day she cringes every time I remind her of that lake.
-207
Last April was my amazing journey to Angola, Africa. It was my first time to go there. At that time, the weather in Canada was under (-10).I left Canada with the big smile on my face that I would see the sun again. I am leaving to Africa, (the content of sun), as we used to say. It took more than 22 hours until we arrived to our destination to Angola, at that time the people started to take of their clothes before the airplane landing, I am the only one who stayed on the same clothes that I had. I was sitting beside a man who neither speaks my language nor English .The whole time he was just sending a weird smile to me. I did not understand what he meant. When we arrived to Angola, I moved forward to get off from the airplane. I stepped my first step outside on the stairs into the ground, and suddenly I felt nothing except running back to the airplane. I felt like I am dreaming and moving forward quickly to the hell where the fire is blazing .It was really nice and funny situation because it was not on purpose.
Words: 200
From Linda:
Backpacking in England was one of my goals I reached in my life. In the year 2000, I stepped on this continental country, which totally overturned my thinking of British stereotype. Bowler hat, pin striped suit, carrying a long unopened umbrella with arrogant politeness, that was an English guy I pictured in my mind. When I saw the loose pants, dying hair with piercing nose and rock music on London streets, I doubted I was somewhere in the united states. The another thing that shocked me was that British people were fond of beer very much. They even drunk beer during lunch time in weekdays, which meant it was acceptable to go back to office with a dizzy head. In weekends, young people surged into pubs, drinking, dancing, and chatting. I felt they would rather be casual than polite. During the journey, I saw the new British through the old. The history was always shining but people moved on with times, and so they changed my view about them.
Twenty years ago, it was summer when my grand father promised us that he was taking us to a festival in another city .My grandfather gave us the departure time. He wanted everyone to be ready on time, so we could arrive at the festival on time .We all, my siblings and cousins were excited. We woke up early .Everyone took their breakfast and we packed in the jeep. We were all together, twelve, including my grandfather .My grandfather took out everything from his jeep such as the jack and extra tire because the jeep was overloaded. As we arrived halfway, my grandfather said, “Oh no!”
Many voices for response, “What happened grandpa?”
“I have to check,” he said.
Everyone was trying to see and pushing each other. Then grandfather announced the jeep’s tire was punctured. We all were standing on the road asking for a ride. Nobody stopped for us because we were too many. After three hours someone stopped for us. He lent his cell phone. Then my grandfather made a call to my uncle .He brought another car, and he took us home. Everyone was tired, hungry and mad. Since that time we never asked for another festival.
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